Naota Nandaba
Naota Nandaba is a New Republic starfighter pilot and ace. Not much is known about his early childhood. In fact, he becomes very tight lipped when that particular topic comes up during a conversation and tends to change the subject as quickly as he can. He claims that he's from a planet called Penumbra Prime, however there is no such planet or even a Penumbra star system in any known astrogational database. The first official record of him dates back to almost 10 years ago, when he arrived to the Imperial Naval Academy where he spent the next three years of his life as a Flight Cadet. He got moved up a semester twice, which means he graduated a full year sooner than the rest of his original class. His grades are unclassified, and indicate that he was consistently in top five of his class, with a near failing grade in ship mechanics. After graduating second in his class he requested a posting with Research & Development and for the next year and half he flew some of the newest Imperial starfighter designs. By then he rose to the rank of Captain and served as the CO of the small squadron of R&D pilots in the Division. No one knows his reason for defecting except him. Just a little over there years ago he showed up at a New Republic recruiting office, walking right through the front door, wanting to enlist to Star-Ops. After his NRI debrief he was quickly assigned to the [[NRSD Crusader|NRSD Crusader]] (at the time, flagship of the Second Fleet), Falcon Squadron, under Lt. Commander Leo Corak. During the next 6-8 months he flew various missions against the Empire, facing the infamous Black Stars on most of those occasions. He rose steadily through the ranks, by the time the NR launched its campaign to free some of oppressed aliens population from Imperial Coruscant he was already a Lt. Commander, XO of Falcon squadron under Commander Corak. After breaking through the Imperial defenses in the Fourth Battle of Coruscant he was one of the few Star-Ops pilots who got trapped on the surface when the Imperial raised the planetary shields. He was one of the three who flew the mission against the shield emitters, in an attempt to destroy enough of those so a hole would form and NR reinforcement could be landed to save the doomed beachhead. For his actions during this mission he later received the Star of Alderaan from Leia Organa Solo. Soon after the NR Task Force has achieved its objective and withdrew to Dac (or, Mon Calamari) he took over first as CO of Drake Squadron, at the rank of Commander, then briefly as Ghost Squadron CO before becoming Star-Ops XO for the Second Fleet. Two months later he took over as the CAG. As Operation Trillium Scepter started to take shape he was selected by NR High Command as the CAG of the combined starfighter groups of Task Force Hammer and as such he played a pivotal role in Coruscant's liberation. After the successful campaign he felt that he was becoming too much of a desk-jockey, so he stepped down as the Second's CAG and transferred over to the R&D Division on OS Paladin where he became a test pilot for the experimental E-wing and the X-2. He was also involved with less publicized projects as well. Nandaba, Naota Nandaba, Naota Nandaba, Naota Nandaba, Naota